Tobacco.org

• Japan Tobacco Operating Profit Slumps on Domestic Sales, Yen 

Japan Tobacco Inc., the world’s third-largest publicly traded cigarette maker, said first- quarter operating profit plunged 24 percent as domestic sales dropped and the yen gained.

Operating profit fell to 84.3 billion yen ($887 million) for the three months ended June from 110.5 billion yen a year earlier, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement today. Sales slipped 15 percent to 1.46 trillion yen from 1.72 trillion yen.

The maker of Camel and Mild Seven cigarettes is losing sales in Japan as the smoking rate falls and tighter tobacco controls are introduced. The yen’s rise against the dollar and other currencies eroded gains from overseas cigarette sales helped by the 2007 takeover of U.K.-based Gallaher Group Plc.

“Japan Tobacco was among victims by the global recession,” said Mitsuo Shimizu, an analyst at Tokyo-based Cosmo Securities Co. “It needs to seek growth outside Japan, which makes it more vulnerable to currency swings.”

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• Tobacco maker group hands over taspo user data to prosecutors  

The Tobacco Institute of Japan, the industry body of tobacco manufacturers, has turned over vending machine use logs on cigarette pack purchases by certain individual smokers to public prosecutors when they requested such information for investigative purposes, informed sources said Sunday. Such logs of ''taspo'' smart cards included records on when and at which vending machines the smokers bought cigarette packs, as well as their dates of birth, addresses and phone numbers, the sources said.

There has been a case in which the provided logs helped investigators find a person who had evaded some fines, the sources said. . . .

An institute official told Kyodo News, ''We have kept track of purchases-related logs to check if taspo cards that were stolen or for which reports of loss have been filed may have been used illicitly, and we basically would not provide them to third parties.''

''But we cannot help turning over such logs as well as the addresses, names, dates of birth and contacts of cardholders to investigative authorities as necessary if the authorities request the logs in writing in line with the Code of Criminal Procedure,'' the official said.

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• Japan’s Convenience Store Sales Fall on Cigarettes (Update1)  

Japan’s convenience-store sales in June fell for the first time in 14 months, as customers spent less on cigarettes and lunchbox meals.

Sales at stores open more than a year dropped 2.3 percent to 605.9 billion yen ($6.44 billion), the Japan Franchise Association said in a statement today. Department store sales fell 8.8 percent in June, capping the worst half-year performance, the Japan Department Stores Association said in a separate release today.

Consumers in Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, have cut back on spending as unemployment rose to a five-year high and wages fell for the 12th straight month in May. Sales at convenience stores last year were also boosted with the introduction of an age verification card for vending-machine purchases of cigarettes, which increased customer traffic at chains including Seven & I Holdings Co.’s 7-Eleven and Lawson Inc.’s outlets.

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The Importance of Acting with Noblesse Oblige  

Hiroshi Kimura, Japan Tobacco Inc.'s president and chief executive, had to start last year's annual report with an apology. It wasn't about the sale of tobacco-related products but rather for pesticide-laced gyoza, or dumplings, imported from China and sold by the group's JT Foods subsidiary. . . .

in 1999 JT took an international turn when it acquired RJR International, the non-U.S. operations of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., and renamed the unit JT International. Mr. Kimura was then vice president of JT's corporate-planning division and subsequently became JTI's executive vice president.

Tor Ching Li spoke with Mr. Kimura at his office in Tokyo. The interview has been translated from Japanese and edited.

WSJ: What did you learn from your first job?

Mr. Kimura: After graduation I joined Japan Tobacco and Salt Public Corporation, at a product-development unit where I was involved in conceptualizing brands, naming, choosing package design and test-marketing. I was lucky to have been involved in the launch of a couple of products that are still core products of the company, such as the Mild Seven and Cabin labels.

When I first joined I learned from a senior the [French] phrase noblesse oblige, which I understood to mean not shirking the responsibilities of your position. . . .

WSJ: What are the challenges facing your industry?

Mr. Kimura: There is a universal trend toward stricter restrictions on smoking. While we recognize that tobacco is a controversial product and regulation is necessary, we oppose over-regulation, and believe that rules need to be tailored to the situation in order to be enforceable. We also see regulation as an opportunity. Through consultation with the relevant authorities, we give our feedback and suggestions, such as the creation of smoking booths for areas where smoking on the street is banned.

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• Campaigners fume over Japan's smokers-only cafes 

Japan has banned smoking from most public places, including many city streets, but one company has given refuge to the dwindling ranks of tobacco addicts -- by opening smokers-only cafes.

Thick cigarette smoke wafts through the 'Cafe Tobacco' shops in the heart of Tokyo, filled with office workers and shoppers looking to take a quick puff, a habit increasingly frowned upon in a country long seen as a smokers' paradise.

"Nowadays smoking is considered an evil," said Tadashi Horiguchi, a board director of the coffee shop operator Towa Food Service Co, which recently opened its second smokers-only cafe in Tokyo and hopes to grow the business.

"We want to provide an oasis for smokers," Horiguchi said as air purifiers overhead sucked up clouds of blueish smoke from the crowded cafe in Shimbashi, a bar-lined city district known as "salaryman town."

Outside, a red sign with a picture of a smoking cigarette drew more customers, about 600 a day according to the manager Kazuhiro Kawano.

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Cafe Tobacco
Towa Food Service Co's smokers-only cafes in Tokyo.

• Tobacco Cafe an oasis for smokers 

Salaried workers feeling cornered by the ever-expanding ban on smoking in Tokyo can rest easy at a recently opened cafe in the Shinbashi district that caters exclusively to smokers.

At Cafe Tobacco, smoking is allowed on all three floors, according to its operator, Towa Food Service Co.

The cafe, with 44 places, opened near JR Shinbashi Station in April. Towa Food Service has also opened a second Tobacco Cafe in the nearby Yurakucho business district.

A sign posted at the entrance advises people with children and those under 20 to refrain from using the cafe.

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• Debate swirls over smoking in Air Force homes  

Some Air Force base housing residents in the Pacific say they wish their commands would offer them the option of smoke-free housing.

Others — smokers and nonsmokers alike — believe the military shouldn’t have any say in whether people can smoke in the privacy of their personal, albeit government-provided, home.

The issue came up at a Yokota Air Base town hall meeting earlier this year after residents there learned that Misawa Air Base would ban smoking in its family housing apartment towers starting May 1. During the meeting, several residents said they have neighbors’ cigarette smoke flowing into their homes and asked if the base could ban smoking in the towers.

Misawa officials said they instituted the ban because they weren’t in compliance with an Air Force instruction that states "the rights of the nonsmokers will prevail." They’ve since added other types of housing units to the ban and set the goal of making the majority of housing smoke-free as units undergo renovations.

The instruction, titled "Tobacco Use in the Air Force," gives commanders the authority to "designate areas or buildings in dormitories or family housing smoke-free when there is a common air-handling unit for multiple individuals or families ... to ensure a healthy and safe environment for all residents."

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• Superfood Soy Linked To Reduction In Smoker's Lung Damage Risk 

People who eat lots of soy products have better lung function and are less likely to develop the smoking-associated lung disease COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). A new study has shown that consumption of a wide variety of soy products can be associated with a reduction in the risk of COPD and other respiratory symptoms.

Dr. Fumi Hirayama and Professor Andy Lee from Curtin University of Technology, Australia, worked with a team of respiratory physicians to poll 300 patients with COPD from six Japanese hospitals and 340 age-matched control subjects from the same areas as the patients about their soy intake. Dr. Hirayama said, "Soy consumption was found to be positively correlated with lung function and inversely associated with the risk of COPD. It has been suggested that flavonoids from soy foods act as an anti-inflammatory agent in the lung, and can protect against tobacco carcinogens for smokers. However, further research is needed to understand the underlying biological mechanism".

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Soy consumption and risk of COPD and respiratory symptoms: a case-control study in Japan 

To investigate the relationship between soy consumption, COPD risk and the prevalence of respiratory symptoms, a case-control study was conducted in Japan. . . .

Conclusions

Increasing soy consumption was associated with a decreased risk of COPD and breathlessness.

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Japan Tobacco plans price hike  

Japan Tobacco Inc, the world's third-largest tobacco firm, said it is likely to hike its domestic cigarette prices within the next three years to secure a profit amid a steadily shrinking market.

Like other developed nations, Japan's smoking population has been declining due to growing health awareness, hitting Japan Tobacco, a former state monoply which controls 65 percent of the domestic cigarette market.

There has been growing speculation that Japan Tobacco would hike its cigarette prices for the first time since July 2006 after it set a target of keeping its core profit from its domestic tobacco business steady for the three years through to March 2012.

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AUDIO: The Leonard Lopate Show: David Sedaris (June 02, 2009) 

David Sedaris on his collection of 22 essays on his favored topics: death, compulsion, unwanted sexual advances and corporal decay. It's called When You Are Engulfed in Flames.

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Japan opposition wants tobacco tax hike 

Japan's largest opposition party plans to hike tobacco taxes with the goal of halving the nation's number of smokers if it wins the next election, the deputy head of the party's tax team said on Wednesday.

"One of the big challenges is how to reduce the number of smokers and the tax system can be used for that purpose," Motohisa Furukawa, vice chair of the Democratic Party's tax committee, told Reuters.

"As long as it curbs smoking, our thinking is that it is OK even if tax revenue falls as a result."

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JT Smokers Style commercial #3 

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• Taspo FAIL - Japanese Reject Scarlet Letter of Smoking 

We've written before about Taspo, the RFID-chipped ID card that allows "of age" (20 or older) smokers to get their smokes through any of the nations 420,000 tobacco vending machines. Mostly the campaign has been a disaster for folks who own vending machines, a boom for convenience stores (where you don't need the cards), and and a burden for smokers who just want to buy a pack without registering themselves with Big Brother. . . .

Going by purely anecdotal evidence and personal experience, even the heaviest smokers want nothing to do with the card. For most, however, it's not a privacy issue, but one of pride: They don't want an official "smoking license", complete with a picture of themselves, to buy something that is their choice. In order to protect a small minority (teenagers) the rest of society must bear the burden of Taspo.

If tobacco makers are actually interested in selling their products and not just submitting to what will surely become complete regulation, they would be embracing vending machines with facial recognition, rather than making their customers file with the authorities. Of course, facial recognition doesn't always work, but it's a relatively non-invasive way to solve a problem that isn't such a big deal to begin with.

In the meantime, convenience stores should beware: Increased sales in your sector mean that you're next on the chopping block. Expect a full-on Taspo reader integrated into cash registers in no time.

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• DAVIES: Smoking Manners Campaign in Japan 

With an increased focus on smoking related issues throughout the world - placing public pressure on tobacco companies, including falling revenue from the sale of cigarettes - Japan Tobacco has chosen to adopt a smoking manners campaign as a means of building its public profile and image of corporate responsibility. . . .

As one wanders through the streets of Japan the signs that one encounters are intriguing. Pasted mostly on the side of cigarette bins - street corner fixtures where smokers can conveniently butt-out – they utilize stick figure cartoons and short phrases to hit home the message.

What is unusual is the tense. In the English language didactic messages are usually presented in the third person. These messages are presented in the first person.

It is as if one is witnessing a miniature film noir world, in which a Humphrey Bogart type character is making comments as he smokes his way through everyday life. Perhaps this is intentional on the part of JT – whatever - it makes for fine reading:

‘In summertime, the arms that pass near my lit cigarette are bare.'

‘I threw my cigarette butt into the drain. That is to say, I hid it in the drain.'

‘I moved to avoid him. But my smoke didn't.

‘A person was waving at me. He was waving away my smoke.'

Incorporating little stick characters, diagrams, very large cigarettes, and all manner of statements and philosophical questions, the signs are a visual delight. My favorites are the ones that anthropomorphize cigarettes, giving them human qualities:

Inhaled. Burned. Thrown away. If it were anything but a cigarette, it would surely be crying. . . .

Examples of manners signs: http://www.conbinibento.com/photos/index.php?gallery=./Smoking%20Manners

Real photos of manners signs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlietyack/sets/ 72057594078351752/

Japan Tobacco website covering the manners campaign http://www.jt.com/investors/media/press_releases/ 2008/05/appendix20080521_01_02.html

Manners Add for TV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28Ytg3IogDg

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In summertime, the arms that pass near my lit cigarette are bare.
Posters used in Japan's smoking manners campaign are examined. No extra cost for the poetry.